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The National Book Foundation has as its mission "to celebrate the best of American literature, to expand its audience, and to enhance the cultural value of good writing in America."

As part of its pursuit of this mission, the foundation recently announced some changes to the way it handles the National Book Awards.

Beginning this year, the foundation will honor more books by choosing a Long List, 10 books, in each of the four categories in which prizes are awarded.

So on Sept. 12, 40 titles will be announced. Then, 25 finalists will be announced Oct. 15, with the final four winners to be announced Nov. 20.

Keeping an eye out for the 10-book lists might be helpful for readers as they choose future book club selections.

"The Long List will allow us to recognize more good books and broaden the conversation," Morgan Entrekin, vice chairman of the foundation's board of directors and publisher and CEO of Grove Atlantic, said in a press release about the changes.

The four categories are fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people's literature.

They made other changes, also. They are having not

only writers, but also literary critics, librarians and book sellers, be eligible to be included on the panel of judges

in each genre.

That's not a post to be taken lightly, as each judge will have to read scores of books to finalize his or her choices of finalists and ultimately the one winner in each category.

If you don't want to wait to learn the winners of this year's National Book Awards, keep an eye out next month for the National Book Critics Circle Awards.

A winner will be named in each of six categories -- fiction, general nonfiction, biography, poetry, autobiography and criticism.

The books don't have to be written by U.S. citizens, as the National Book Awards do. They just need to be published in the U.S. during the year.

Going by titles alone, the nonfiction category seems particular intriguing this year, with the finalists "Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity," by Katherine Boo; "Private Empire: Exxon Mobil and American Power," by Steve Coll.

Also, "Why Does the World Exist? An Existential Detective Story," by Jim Holt; "Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic,"